Mr. Love: A Romantic Comedy

by Sally Mason

  “Oh, I fobbed her off saying something about those men elevating them beyond chick-lit.”

  “Do you believe that now?”

  “No, I don’t. Jane told me that she found Ivy honest and moving, and even profound. I would like to believe that she is right.”

  Sarah turns to the audience.

  “What do we think?”

  Roars of approval.

  Jane hears her cell phone trilling from down the corridor where she has left it in her old bedroom.

  She hurries into the room and sees the phone going crazy.

  Missed calls.

  Texts.

  All from New York publishing houses.

  She mutes the phone, throws it in a drawer which she slams shut before she bolts from the house.

  Escaping the deluge unleashed upon her by the insufferable Gordon Rushworth.

  56

  Jane is in Hicksville’s only surviving bar, a gloomy place down near the Greyhound station.

  Aside from her, the patrons are exclusively male and over the age of fifty.

  Nobody bothers Jane and the bartender, a giant with a wall eye and a badly set broken nose, seems to have no use for conversation.

  Her requests for more beer are met with a solemn nod of the head and a wheezing breath as he reaches into the cooler below the counter, emerges with a longneck, pops the cap and sets the bottle down before her.

  She has long made it clear that she has no need of a glass.

  Some hours into her solitary bender—long enough for the hard edges of the room to lose focus and melt like a Dali painting—a man heaves himself onto the stool beside her.

  “Janey?” he says. “Janey Cooper?”

  Jane closes one eye in an effort to bring him into focus.

  He is maybe forty-five, big—though not as huge as the barkeep—and bald, with a smile that may have been charming a few thousand cigarettes ago.

  She doesn’t recognize him.

  Maybe an acquaintance of her father’s?

  “Do I know you?” Jane says, slurring only a little.

  He laughs.

  “Richie,” he says. “Richie Packer.”

  She stares at him blankly.

  “We were in high school together. I was captain of the football team.”

  With great effort she finds remnants of the smug young jock of more than a decade ago hidden inside the oaf who has fallen victim to premature middle-age.

  “Okay,” she says, turning back to her beer.

  “So I heard about your father, Janey. That’s too bad.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Get you a beer?”

  “I’m okay,” she says, but he ignores her and orders two bottles from the bartender.

  “You’re looking real good, Janey,” Richie says with a leer that is meant to be suave.

  “You too.”

  He laughs around the neck of his beer.

  “So I hear you’re up in New York City?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Doin’ what?”

  “Publishing.”

  “Publishing?” he says as if this is something suspiciously un-American. “The big time, huh?”

  “Oh yeah,” she says. “Huge.”

  She drinks.

  “And you, Robbie—”

  “Richie.”

  “Richie! What do you do?”

  “I’m in waste management.”

  She giggles.

  “Like Tony Soprano?”

  He stares at her blankly.

  “Who’s he?”

  Things go downhill from there.

  Richie leans in close, his breath smelling of stale beer and cigarettes and she has to keep shifting on her stool as he paws at her like a horny Labrador while he tells her—in excruciating detail—of his failed marriage.

  After what seems like hours he heaves himself from his seat, saying, “I’m gonna drain the main vein, then whaddaya say we get outta this place? Find somewhere more intimate?”

  Jane says nothing, all her concentration on her beer.

  A while later she sees Richie emerge from the washroom.

  Somehow the giant bartender has left his station without her noticing and stands waiting for Richie.

  A few words are exchanged, drowned by the jukebox that’s stocked exclusively with eighties hits, and then the barkeep uses his massive hands to speed the romantically inclined Richie out of the door and into the night.

  More time passes.

  More beer is consumed.

  The place is nearly empty when, again, Jane senses a man sitting down beside her.

  “Jane?”

  She turns, the room and this guy a blur.

  Even the trick of closing one eye does little to bring him into focus.

  “Hey,” she says, “you look like some asshole I used to know.”

  “Jane,” he says, “I think it’s time to go.”

  “You look like that miserable excuse for a man, Gordy Rushworth.”

  “It is me, Jane,” he says. “It’s Gordon.”

  She leans in close to examine his face, saying, “Gordy, Gordy, Gordy?” as she tips forward off the stool and falls headlong into blackness.

  57

  A road crew, led by a very enthusiastic jackhammer operator, are hard at work inside Jane’s head.

  She opens an eye and groans, the small shaft of sunlight that penetrates the curtains of her childhood bedroom like a laser to her eye.

  She lies a while and takes stock.

  Remembers drinking a vast amount of beer.

  Remembers some guy from school—Robbie? Richie?—trying to hit on her and then not much else after that.

  She sits up and has to wait until the room stops spinning before she levers herself slowly to her feet, noticing that she wears a pair of paisley PJs that can only belong to her mother.

  Jane finds a robe and manages to shrug it on, the pounding in her head almost felling her.

  Dragging herself down the corridor toward the kitchen in search of Tylenol, she remembers something else through the fog of booze.

  Another guy sitting beside her in that bar.

  A guy who had looked weirdly like Gordon Rushworth.

  Jane shuffles into the kitchen, her eyes on the floor, and when a voice says, “Jane?” she screams and has to grab hold of the door to stop herself falling.

  “Jane, are you okay?” Gordon says, standing up from the kitchen table.

  She gapes at him.

  “Gordon?”

  “Yes,” he says.

  “You were in that bar last night?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  He takes her by the elbow.

  “Come, sit down.’

  She slumps into a seat at the table.

  “You brought me home?”

  “Yes. It took all my powers of persuasion to convince the bartender that my intentions were honorable.”

  “Are they?”

  “What?”

  “Honorable?”

  He smiles.

  “Can I get you a cup of coffee?” he asks.

  “No, water. And Tylenol. They’re in the closet by the fridge.”

  Gordon finds the container and fills a glass with water.

  Jane slugs back the pills and stares at Gordon.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I came to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “About being my agent. About representing Ivy.”

  “That ship has sailed, Gordon. Or sunk, rather.”

  “Not at all. I don’t know if you heard but I was on The Sarah Snowdon Show yesterday?”

  She is not about to give him the satisfaction of telling him that she saw him on the show, so she shakes her head.

  An action she immediately regrets.

  She groans.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Will you stop fussing over me, Gordon? Where’s my mother?”

  “She went to the store.”


  “Where did you stay last night?”

  “Your mother kindly allowed me use of her sleeper couch.”

  Jane drags her mouth down in something like a smile.

  “You’re a real couch guy aren’t you, Gordon?”

  He raises his hands as if surrendering.

  “Jane, please let me make amends. Interest in Ivy has never been higher.”

  “Bully for you, Gordo.”

  She stares at him.

  “I did catch a bit of that show yesterday. Heard you mouthing all of my arguments in favor of women’s fiction.”

  “I did give you credit.”

  “I’m not buying this sudden conversion of yours, Gordon, from the literary snob to the champion of chick-lit. I think you’re—in the words of my dear departed old dad—blowing smoke up my butt.”

  He shrugs.

  “Okay, let me be honest—”

  “Why don’t you try that? You may enjoy the novelty.”

  “Jane, I will admit that I still revere great writing but I am adjusting my frame of reference sufficiently to see the virtues of popular fiction.”

  “How damned egalitarian of you, Gordo.”

  “I’ve claimed Ivy as my own.”

  “Only after Bitsy outed you.”

  “Be that as it may, I have claimed authorship and I’m prepared to concede that as a piece of writing Ivy is far more successful than Too Long the Night.”

  “Well, hallelujah for that.”

  “And I have you to thank for opening my eyes.”

  She stares at him.

  “What do you want, Gordon? Just showing up like this?”

  “I want you, Jane.”

  “Really? What’s the turn on, my lion’s breath or my mother’s PJs?”

  He has the good grace to blush.

  “Well, of course, I would hope that our personal relationship would blossom along with our professional one.”

  “Hell, Gordon, which century are you living in? Can’t you speak American for God’s sake?”

  “Jane let’s stop sniping at one another and keep our eyes on the prize. There, is that American enough for you?”

  “Keep going.”

  “All the things you negotiated for Ivy when you were with Blunt are still on the table: the paperback sale, the movie deal.”

  “Gordon, I was fired.”

  “I know that. So you’re, so-to-speak, a free agent?”

  “If you mean unemployed and unemployable, yes.”

  “Then I’m here to sign with JCA.”

  “What’s JCA?”

  “The Jane Cooper Agency.”

  “There is no Jane Cooper Agency.”

  “There is now.”

  She stares at him.

  “I’m broke, living in my mother’s house in Hicksville.”

  He places two airplane tickets on the table.

  “There’s a flight to New York City leaving Indianapolis in three hours. If you hurry we can make it.”

  “You’re serious about all this?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “What happens when we get to New York?”

  “You talk to the publishers. You talk to Hollywood.”

  “I don’t even have an office.”

  “Right now all you need is a cell phone and an iPad.”

  He smiles.

  “And me.”

  58

  She’s balked and bolted, Gordon decides as he pushes aside his untouched poached egg, staring, as he has for the past hour, at the doorway to La Caprice restaurant at The Pierre.

  He last saw Jane Cooper just before midnight, when he dropped her off at her apartment after the cab ride from LaGuardia.

  “Do you want me to come up?” he’d asked. “Just to see you’re okay?”

  Pretending chivalry, but—why hide it?—he felt the pleasurable stirrings of lust beneath his just-too-tight Saks leather belt.

  Jane had said, “Thanks, Gordon, but no. I’m exhausted. I’m going to hit the shower and then my bed and I’ll meet you for breakfast at The Pierre at eight.”

  It’s now after nine and she’s a no-show.

  And when he tries her call her—as he has countless times over the last hour—he goes straight to voice mail.

  What had he been thinking?

  Jetting off to the Midwest.

  Coercing her to return with him to Manhattan.

  That’s what you get when you take Hugh Grant as a role model, he tells himself.

  He’s busy trying to attract the attention of a waiter when Jane appears and drops into the chair opposite him.

  “God, I’m sorry, Gordon. I overslept.”

  “That’s okay,” he says. “I tried calling.”

  “I switched my phone off. All these calls are terrifying me.”

  “Good. You’re keeping their appetites whetted.”

  “I’ve also had a barrage of emails. I haven’t opened them all, but it seems the Big Five are hunting me down. One I did open was from Argyle, the publisher who bought the book when Bitsy was posing as the author. Amazingly, they’re still keen. They’re speaking of adjusting their offer northward.”

  “That’s excellent.”

  “And I got a message from Bree Danforth’s agent.”

  He stares at her blankly.

  “Gordon, which planet are you visiting us from?”

  Jane shakes her head.

  “The gorgeous young actress who famously put her career on hold while she went off to get a first class degree at Yale?”

  “I may have heard of her . . .” Gordon says.

  Jane snorts.

  “I suppose you’re genetically programmed to watch only movies with subtitles?”

  “Very funny.”

  “Anyway, Bree Danforth has decided that she wants to make her comeback playing Suzie.”

  “She sounds perfect.”

  “She is. As different from Raynebeau Jones as anybody could be.”

  “I somehow never saw Suzie played by an airhead with a PhD in Valley Girl.”

  Jane tries a smile that doesn’t take.

  “What’s wrong, Jane?” Gordon asks. “Everything is sounding great? All these offers?”

  “Great for you, Gordon, but there’s no place for me.”

  He reaches across the table and takes her hand.

  “What are you talking about, Jane? I told you, you’ll represent me.”

  She shakes her head.

  “It’s impossible. Yesterday I was so lost in booze and grief and general messed-upness I forget one vital detail.”

  “Which is?”

  “I signed a non-compete clause with Blunt. For five years I’m legally bound not to work in the publishing industry, in any capacity.” She shrugs. “I wanted to tell you this to your face, Gordon.”

  She stands.

  “Sit, Jane.”

  “Why?”

  “That non-compete clause is meaningless.”

  “Why?”

  “Please, sit down.”

  She sits.

  He opens the copy of The Wall Street Journal that lies beside his untouched breakfast, finds the report headlined CHAPTER 11 FOR PUBLISHING MAVERICK and slides it across to her.

  “The Blunt Agency is no more. Jonas Blunt declared bankruptcy yesterday.”

  She reads for a few seconds then looks up at him.

  “My God. The Ivy thing took him down. I feel terrible.”

  “Don’t. Jonas has been overextending himself in every direction for years. Ivy was merely the pin that burst the bubble.”

  He takes her hand again.

  “So, I see no problem here. I’m not trying to tell you your job, but I suspect you need to announce another auction of Ivy.”

  Jane shakes her head.

  “I feel as though I’m on a rollercoaster.”

  “Would a Bloody Mary steady your nerves?”

  “No!”

  She closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose.

  Then s
he blinks and looks at him with wide eyes.

  “You’re asking me to swing one of the biggest publishing deals of the last decade from the bedroom of my apartment?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  She stares at him blankly.

  Gordon stands.

  “Come with me. We’re going for a walk.”

  “Where to?”

  “Don’t ask questions. It’s a lovely Fall morning. Let’s enjoy it.”

  He makes for the door and Jane has no choice but to follow him.

  “Mr. Rushworth? I’m Ann Bascomb.”

  The woman in the dark business suit stands up from a seat near the elevator of a Midtown office tower.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Gordon says, shaking her hand. “This is my agent, Jane Cooper.”

  The two women shake hands and Ann Bascomb presses for an elevator.

  As they step inside she smiles up at Gordon.

  “I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but I’m a huge fan.”

  “Thank you,” he says as they ascend.

  “I just wish you could sign my Kindle.”

  He laughs as the elevator chimes and they walk out into a corridor on the tenth floor.

  The property broker unlocks a door and Gordon watches Jane’s face as they enter a suite of offices with views over the city.

  “Well, what do you think?” he asks.

  “It’s beautiful,” Jane says. “But I can’t. No. This is crazy.”

  Gordon turns to Ann Bascomb.

  “Would you give us a moment, please?”

  He takes Jane’s arm and walks her over to window that offers a spectacular vista of Central Park.

  “You can do this, Jane.”

  “I’m broke.”

  “You won’t be for long. You do know that over the next few months your commissions on Ivy will total at least seven figures?”

  She nods.

  “Then what are you waiting for?” Gordon asks.

  Jane shakes her head.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Just say yes, Jane.”

  Gordon takes her hand.

  “Just say yes.”

  59

  “Yes,” Jane says. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  She slams the phone down and swivels her chair to look out over the park, a view that always calms her.

  The door to her office opens and her assistant, Belinda, sticks her head in.

  “Everything okay?”